


A Stormy Evening Story

by 014469



Series: Thunderstorms [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, M/M, No Angst, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Soft Stucky Week 2016, Thunderstorms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8985010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/014469/pseuds/014469
Summary: Written for Soft Stucky Week 2016 and cross-posted on my tumblr (as Kateyfish). A slice of life on a stormy evening for Steve and Bucky.Sequel to my fic 'Thunderstorms are good for something' but set a few years after that one.





	

Steve Rogers sat curled up on the window seat in Bucky’s – now _their_ – apartment and watched the rain fall. He had a cup of green tea nestled in his hands and a blanket around his shoulders, green and fluffy and ridiculously warm. Outside the window, large wet raindrops hammered down, turning the world grey. From his viewpoint, Steve could see rooftops, windows and steam outlets, corrugated iron and warm red brick and crumbling concrete. His artists’ brain framed the scene as if he was going to draw it, and his hands twitched in longing to pick up his watercolour set that was tucked away under their bed. A particularly loud clap of thunder startled him out of his thoughts. Here in their apartment he knew he and Bucky were safe from the storm that raged outside. Below their loft apartment, his boyfriend was locking up the garage that he co-owned for the night, checking the locks and turning off the heaters before trudging up the narrow back stairs to join Steve. Bucky should be home any minute now… 

Right on cue, the apartment door opened and Bucky stepped in. As always, the sight of his large boyfriend home from work took Steve’s breath away. He was just ridiculously beautiful, in Steve’s opinion. Grey eyes the colour of the sky outside, longish chestnut hair tied back into a messy little bun and the kind of muscled body that wouldn’t look out of place in the centrefold of a magazine. The two of them together made an interesting character study, Steve knew. Where Steve himself was bony and short, Bucky was tall, broad and gorgeous. Steve had blond hair shaved meticulously short on the back and sides, while Bucky had an unruly mop of feathery brown shoulder-length waves. Bucky’s body was muscled, his face lined with grease and half covered by thick dark stubble. Steve, on the other hand, was habitually clean-shaven and, despite his best efforts, still skinny and scrawny even as an almost-thirty year old adult. 

Yes, Steve and Bucky may have looked like a mismatched pair on the surface, but in every other way they fit together perfectly like parts of a well-oiled machine. They were both creators, both fixers. Bucky took machines that were broken and made them whole again; Steve took the visions in strangers’ heads and gave them form and weight and substance on a canvas. Bucky protected the people he loved with kind words and offers of help while Steve defended his loved ones from harm with his sharp tongue and, sometimes, his quick fists. 

Steve smiled and called out to Bucky as he closed the door behind him and slumped against it. 

‘Hey Buck! Good day at work?’

Bucky seemed to perk up at the sound of his boyfriends’ voice. He slowly lifted his eyes and gave Steve the crinkle-eyed smile that always got Steve’s heart racing. 

‘Long day at work. And it looks like this storm’s gonna get worse tonight.’

Steve’s smile fell away. Bucky hated storms, a hangover from his short-lived military career. The unpredictable lightning flashes and loud thunder growls grated on Steve’s otherwise fearless boyfriend in a way that often left him a shivering lump in the middle of their bed. 

Steve thought back to when he’d first met Bucky, over two years ago now. That had been in the middle of a thunderstorm too, one far, far worse than todays’. His bike had broken down and he’d called Bucky’s garage to help him out, falling for the brunette almost as soon as he’d pulled up out of the curtains of rain and grinned at Steve with his stupid beautiful face. Knowing now how Bucky felt about storms, Steve wondered at the fact that Bucky had driven his truck out in the middle of that earlier storm to come pick him up. That was just like Bucky though, putting others first and swallowing down his own fear to get the job done. 

Seeing how beat down Bucky looked, Steve left his blanket cocoon by the window without another word. He crossed over to where Bucky was trying to ease his battered old boots off his feet without untying the laces, and stretched up to give Bucky a long, warm hug. Bucky reciprocated after a moment, and Steve felt Bucky’s back muscles shift as he craned his neck down to rest his nose in Steve’s hair. 

‘Go take a shower. I’ll start dinner.’ Steve gently ordered. He was the bossy one in the relationship – well there had to be one – and he knew Bucky didn’t mind being on the receiving end of gentle affectionate bossing around every once in a while. It was a dynamic that worked well for them, even in the bedroom. 

Bucky mumbled tired acquiescence and trudged off towards their tiny bathroom, weariness and ache drawn on this body in every step. Steve shook his head as he watched Bucky retreat. His boyfriend worked too hard. He managed the garage, the orders, the paperwork and the growing staff, all in addition to his share of the actual workload on the garage floor. Bucky deserved to be loved on a little tonight, Steve decided, especially as he knew that thunderstorms were hard on his tired love’s nerves. 

Steve was a fucking terrible cook. He could admit that much to himself – after all, there was a reason why Bucky handled most of their meals together. Standing over the stove, eyes anxiously flicking between the bubbling pot of… brown… whatever… in front of him and the recipe book propped open on the counter, Steve’s stubbornness refused to let him quit his attempt at a winter stew even as the brown mess bubbled and stuck to the pot. He had followed the recipe to the letter, what the hell had he done wrong? Why did his stew look different to the one in the book? This shit right here was why Steve had rarely cooked for himself in his bachelor days, preferring to live on peanut butter sandwiches and ramen noodles. Bucky was the caretaker, the one who’d made Steve take the time to look after himself and insisted that no boyfriend of his wouldn’t be able to poach an egg. It had taken Steve five months – five goddamn months – just to learn how to do that, and he was still shaky on exactly when a poached egg was actually, y’know, poached. 

~~~~~

‘What smells like garlic? Stevie, are you actually cooking?’ 

Bucky entered the kitchen while Steve wrestled with some kind of dark brown bubbling concoction, and plopped himself down at the table behind Steve’s back. Steve whipped around and glared at his boyfriend. 

‘I said I would, didn’t I?’

‘Hmph. Thought you were joking. You never willingly cook food.’ 

Bucky’s eyes danced at Steve as he spoke, letting him know that he was teasing. Even after years of being together, Bucky knew that Steve was still sensitive about being teased sometimes, about being _not good enough_. It was a yardstick of Steve’s mood from day to day, how much teasing he’d let Bucky get away with. 

Bucky had showered the grime of the day off himself, taking his time to wash and condition his hair as he remembered how cute Steve looked all wrapped up in the blankets by the window and smiled to himself in the steamy bathroom. His adorable, gorgeous boyfriend wanted to cook for him? Well, no matter that the last several attempts had ended in black smoke stains on the kitchen walls and the hasty application of a fire blanket. Maybe this time Steve would pull it off, and bless his boyfriend for never giving up. 

Bucky’s love for Steve was a fire under his ribs, constantly stoked by Steve’s smiles and Steve’s care and Steve’s _everything._ Not for the first time that day, Bucky’s thoughts drifted to the silver ring in the nondescript black box he had hidden in his sock drawer. The right time would present itself, he knew that for sure, just as he knew that Steve was the one for him. He’d never been happier than he was here in the kitchen with his boyfriend cooking what smelled like a whole herb garden boiling in a garlic broth, scowling at the recipe book and impatiently stirring the pot with jerky swirls of his left hand. He knew how this would go. His mule-stubborn boyfriend would refuse to admit that he hadn’t got it right until the evidence was literally in his mouth. All Bucky could do was make a cup of his favourite ginger and lemon tea and let the worries of the day rush away from him as their tiny kitchen glowed with light and warmth in the evening hush.

Finally, casting doubtful looks at Bucky the whole time, Steve served up and they both managed to eat enough of what was possibly the most garlicky Irish stew Bucky had ever tasted that they weren’t ravenously hungry any more. They traded garlic-heavy kisses as they washed up and Bucky smiled at their combined funk. He would never admit it on pain of death, but Bucky didn’t actually like Irish stew. He loved Steve more than he hated stew, however, and he’d eat as much of whatever Steve wanted to cook him as often as he wanted to cook it. Not even the dubious brown goo that remained stuck onto the bottom of the pot could make the domesticity of their dinner any less perfect. 

After dinner, however, the storm worsened. While searching for his phone, Bucky flinched as lightning strikes forked across the leaden sky and compact black thunderclouds raced each other, hanging heavy on the bruised underbelly of the slate-coloured rain clouds. Fog rolled in and enveloped Brooklyn in clinging billows as he watched. This made him nervous – anything could be out there in the fog and the rain, any threats could sneak up on them under cover of the booming thunder and as for the lightning, well – the fewer things that reminded Bucky of grenades and muzzle-flashes, the better in his opinion. Absent-mindedly he rubbed the spot on his left shoulder where he’d been shot years before as he trembled in his bedroom. He was all alone, he was out in strange territory and he’d lost the rest of his unit, he was being hunted by dark shapes that moved through the mists like wolves in the night, there were worse monsters than wolves and they could be at his front door for all he could see them…

‘Bucky?’ Steve’s low voice broke through his whirling thoughts. Steve, he thought distantly. If Steve was here, that meant… that meant he was safe. Steve was safety and warmth and home. Steve would never let anything bad happen to him. Steve _loved_ him. 

~~~~~~~~

 

Steve’s voice seemed to call Bucky back from whatever dark path his mind had wondered. Steve watched as Bucky roused himself, his eyes clearing. 

‘Come on, I’ve made us both hot chocolate.’ The promise of sweet things was always a sure fire way to give Bucky comfort when he was feeling low. 

‘With the little marshmallows?’ asked Bucky, his voice little more than a whisper.

‘With the little marshmallows. And whipped cream. And chilli and cinnamon and those chocolate dipping sticks that you like,’ answered Steve, hoping that he wasn’t imagining the slight lift in Bucky’s shoulders as he described the sweet treats he’d prepared for them. And that wasn’t all – Steve intended to throw on one of Bucky’s old favourite films and wrap him in blankets and cuddle his blanket-burrito-boyfriend until he forgot all about the storm and his long day at work. 

‘Shoulda just made chocolate fondue instead.’ Bucky actually chuckled, and Steve took that as a very good sign. 

‘It practically is fondue with the amount of stuff that’s in there. Come on, before it gets cold.’

Steve took Bucky’s large bicep in his small hand and guided them both into the neat living area, one ratty sofa in front of an old TV. It wasn’t much, but it was home, to both of them. 

Steve watched as Bucky took up his place on the sofa and made sure that his favourite cushion was plumped up just right and set under Bucky’s left shoulder, which Steve knew could ache in the wet weather. He cranked the heating up a few more degrees, set up the film he’d queued up to play in the background – Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space – and tucked their thickest blanket over Bucky’s legs. With strict instructions not to move, Steve darted into the kitchen and poured out the hot chocolate. He liberally drowned Bucky’s mug in whipped cream, marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles, adding more cinnamon and chocolate until it looked dangerously overloaded. He kept his own mug plainer, because he did still have some health issues after all, and he wasn’t really supposed to have that much sugar. 

Mugs in hand, Steve and Bucky snuggled under the blankets on their sofa and watched all the crappy old movies they could stand. Bucky didn’t sleep – he could never sleep properly during a storm – but Steve held him while he dozed lightly, weaving in and out of sleep with his head on Steve’s narrow chest. The warmth and steady beat of Steve’s heart helped soothe the worst of the fear, Bucky was warm and sleepy and well cared-for in the arms of someone who loved him, and at that moment, he couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> Soft Stucky Week has honestly been awesome for me, I've loved seeing, reading and appreciating all the creations both here and on Tumblr. You should check out the tag #softstuckyweek2016 on Tumblr for more works. 
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr as Kateyfish to chat and see my life outside of Stucky (hah, I know right? i joke, stucky is life) 
> 
> thanks for reading :)


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